The wholesale abandonment of repentance preaching really took root at Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS) in the 70's. It has created a sub-culture of professing Christians who live lives that look no different to the world. It has been a mission field catastrophe and created mass confusion as to why people claim to be Christians and yet persist in bringing reproach on the body of Christ through their lives of perpetual unrepentant sin. The Bible has a name for this kind of Christian - non-Christians!

Without
a doubt, Zane Hodges from DTS was one of the leading voices in spreading this poison. He wrote:

One of the most striking facts
about the doctrine of repentance in the Bible is that this doctrine is totally
absent from John's gospel. There is not even so much as one reference to it in
John's twenty-one chapters... Since John's Gospel does omit the message of
repentance, are we to conclude that its gospel is not the biblical gospel after
all? The very idea carries its own refutation. The fourth evangelist explicitly
claims to be doing evangelism( John 20:30-31 ). It is not the theology of the
gospel of John that is deficient; it is the theology found in lordship
salvation.[1]

This post has been written in order to respond to Hodges
beliefs, which are still very influential on the global mission field. I stand
with John MacArthur in my assessment that this is one of the defining
theological issues of our time and must be fought with unyielding resolve. This
article is designed to show that it is the gospel Zane Hodges advocates that is
deficient and not even a Christian gospel at all. Following is a list of ten
reasons that Hodges assertion is wrong regarding the absence of repentance in
the gospel of John.

1. This is a Very Easy Game to Play

I can easily play the same game with Zane Hodges. The word love makes no appearance in the book of
Acts. Therefore we should ignore the importance of love in fulfilling the Great
Commission and make sure we don’t make it a necessary part of our preaching. A
little closer to the issue at hand, I could also argue that Jesus never
mentions grace in John’s gospel and therefore we should also avoid preaching or
insisting upon God’s grace. Though my comments are sarcastic, these ludicrous
ideas reveal a major deficiency in Hodges’ argument.

2. John is Not the Only Book in the Bible

This is simple but it is true. John’s gospel is not the
entire Bible. The true theologian has to deal with the subject of repentance as
it is dealt with within the entirety of Scripture. The 66 books of the Old and
New Testaments comprise one canon – not 66 canons!

3. John Wrote More Than One Book

John’s gospel is not the only book he wrote. In fact, 1
John, 2 John, 3 John, and Revelation were all probably written later as well.

The word, repent,
features prominently in the book of Revelation. It is used to describe wicked
sinners who refuse to repent (Rev 9:20, 9:21, 16:9, 16:11). Their refusal to metanoia[2]means much more than a change of mind because the context in these passages
reveals their unrepentance by their continuation in their sinful practices.
Jesus also commanded five of the seven churches in Revelation chapters 2 and 3
to repent – Ephesus (Rev 2:5), Pergamum (Rev 2:16), Thyatira (Rev 2:21-22),
Sardis (Rev 3:3), and Laodicea (Rev 3:19). John’s context is clear here that
the repentance demanded requires outward action – “repent and do the works you
did at first” (Rev 2:5).

Although the word repent is not used in John’s three
epistles, the concept is both dominant and clearly portrayed. He who perseveres
in disobedience and wicked works is described as someone who “does not have
God” (2 John 1:9). Those who do good are from God and those who do evil have
“not seen God” (3 John 1:11). In his first epistle, John goes so far as to say
that God’s children are those who practice righteousness and the Devil’s
children are those who continue in their sinful ways (1 John 3:4-10). Repentance
was clearly not a concept that was foreign to John, nor was it a subject he
treated as anything less than a matter of eternal importance.

4. True Biblical Repentance Has a True Biblical Context

As mentioned previously, when Jesus tells the church in
Ephesus to repent, He elaborates on His point by telling them to do the works they
had been doing previously (Rev 2:5).

5. True Biblical Repentance Results in a Change of Mind that Results in a
Change of Action

When John the Baptist preached repentance he commanded his
sinful audience to bear fruits in keeping with repentance. He was asked by the
crowds:

"What
then shall we do?" And he answered them, "Whoever has two tunics is
to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise."
Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, "Teacher, what
shall we do?" And he said to them, "Collect no more than you are
authorized to do." Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what shall we
do?" And he said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats
or by false accusation, and be content with your wages" (Luke 3:10-14).

6. True Biblical Repentance is Tangible and Humanly Quantifiable

Pay attention to yourselves! If
your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him, and if he sins
against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, ‘I
repent,’ you must forgive him (Luke 17:3-4).

Jesus is clearly implying, in these verses, that repentance
is measurable to humans. His command to the offended party is based on the
repentance of the guilty party. The offended party has to be able to determine
if repentance is forthcoming – it must be something more than a change of mind
because it is only the outward change in behavior that is discernable to a
human observer.

7. True Biblical Repentance is Inseparable From Saving Faith

Jesus’ death for sins was an act of salvation. To receive
God's gracious gift Scripture explicitly teaches that:

Truly, then, God overlooking the
times of ignorance, now He strictly commands all men everywhere to repent,
because He has appointed a day in which He is going to judge the world in righteousness
by a Man whom He appointed, having given proof to all by raising Him from the
dead (Acts 17:30-31).

The Apostle Paul said that; “Godly grief produces repentance
that leads to salvation” (2 Cor 7:10a). This repentance from sin and turning
away from it is also a turning to Christ in saving faith in order to receive
salvation:

For by grace you have been saved
through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a
result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).

And that repentance and
forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning
from Jerusalem (Luke 24:47).

And how I kept back nothing that
was profitable, but have shown you and have taught you publicly, and from house
to house, testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward
God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:20-21).

Some people claim that "faith alone" in Ephesians 2:8 negates the
need to repent. But we must remember this hermeneutical rule: Scripture cannot
contradict itself - therefore in understanding it rightly, it must harmonize
with the rest of Scripture. As we harmonize all of Scripture we can clearly see
that sometimes only faith or belief is mentioned, sometimes only repentance is
mentioned, and sometimes both are mentioned (refer to the verses above).

By harmonizing all of these (rather than focusing on a
single verse) we can see that the salvation call is a call to turn away from
sin in repentance and a turning to Christ in faith – trusting Him alone to save
us. The turning to Christ (faith) necessitates a turning away from our carnal
affections (repentance). Man cannot serve two masters. As Todd Friel says;
"Repentance and faith are two wings of the same bird that fly us to the
Savior."[3]

8. True Biblical Repentance is a Work of God

This salvation is ultimately a work of God. Both repentance
(Acts 11:18) and
faith (Eph 2:8)
are works of God. We cannot come to God unless the Spirit draws us (John 6:44). We are not
saved by praying a prayer or walking down to the front of a church. It is God
who saves. It is God who gives us a love for His law and a desire to live in
holiness. It does not mean we stop sinning but it does mean we have a new
relationship with sin manifest in a love for God's law and a desire to obey it:

I will sprinkle clean water on
you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your
idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I
will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and
give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you
to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules (Ezek 36:25-27).

The regenerative work described in Ezekiel 36:25-27 produces
the repentance described in verse 31:

Then you will remember your evil
ways, and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for
your iniquities and your abominations (Ezek 36:31).

Within its context, this repentance is brought about by the
regeneration of the Holy Spirit. As we have seen earlier in John’s epistles, a
lifestyle of repentance is the fruit and sign of a truly regenerate Christian.

10. True Biblical Repentance is in the Gospel of John

There is so much that can be said here, I could take up a
great number of pages in discussion of this one point. For the sake of brevity
I will point out some of the big ones:

And this is the judgment: the
light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the
light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates
the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But
whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen
that his works have been carried out in God (John 3:19-21).

Repentance is clearly included by implication in these
verses that follow right on the heels of John 3:16.

Whoever believes in the Son has
eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath
of God remains on him (John 3:36).

Notice here that the opposite of belief is disobedience. The
belief John describes is clearly a repentant belief. Turning to Christ means
turning away from sin.

If you love me, you will keep my
commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper,
to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive,
because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you
and will be in you (John 14:15-17).

John MacArthur drives the whole
issue home:

To say that John called for a
faith that excluded repentance is to grossly misconstrue the apostle's concept
of what it means to be a believer. Although John never uses repent as a verb,
the verbs he does employ are even stronger. He teaches that all true believers
love the light (3:19), come to the light (3:20-21), obey the Son (3:36), practice
the truth (3:21), worship in spirit and truth (4:23-24), honor God (5:22-24),
do good deeds (5:29), eat Jesus' flesh and drink His blood (6:48-66), love God (8:42
, cf. 1 John 2:15), follow Jesus (10:26-28), and keep Jesus' commandments
(14:15). Those ideas hardly concur with no-lordship salvation! All of them
presuppose repentance, commitment, and a desire to obey.[4]

Thomas Watson responded to this 20th Century
invention 300 years earlier:

“He commandeth all men
everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). Repentance is not arbitrary. It is not left
to our choice whether or not we will repent, but it is an indispensable
command. God has enacted a law in the High Court of heaven that no sinner shall
be saved except the repenting sinner, and He will not break His own law. Though
all the angels should stand before God and beg the life of an unrepenting
person, God would not grant it. “The Lord God, merciful and gracious, keeping
mercy for thousands, and that will by no means clear the guilty” (Exod 34:6-7).
Though God is more full of mercy than the sun is full of light, yet He will not
forgive a sinner while he goes on in his guilt: “He will by no means clear the
guilty!”[5]

Repentance Properly Defined and Applied

Repentance is clearly important to God. The Old Testament
prophets, John the Baptist, Peter, Paul, and Jesus Himself all began their
ministries with a call to repentance. Jesus made it very clear when He spoke
about a natural disaster of His time where eighteen people died. He said that
although they did not die because they were more sinful than others, “unless
you repent, you too will all perish” (Luke 13:3).

What is repentance? Perhaps it is better to initially state
what it is not. repentance is not reformation. Repentance is not remorse. Repentance
is not regret. Wayne Grudem defines repentance as “a heartfelt sorrow for sin,
a renouncing of it, and a sincere commitment to forsake it and walk in
obedience to Christ.”[6]
Repentance is genuine sorrow for offending God that changes us to be more like
Jesus.

Jesus said “there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner
who repents than over 99 just persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7). Our repentance
starts a celebration in heaven. It is repentance that sets us truly free. Free
from the fear of being found out. Free from condemnation. Free from the facades
that we live behind. Free from guilt. Repentance should not be a one-off event
but a lifestyle practice. We all need to live this way because we are all
sinners. The Bible makes it clear that we are all sinners (Romans 6:23) therefore
we’ve all got stuff we need to repent of. “If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness” (I John 1:9).

Heavenly Father, Maker of heaven and earth, Your ways are so
much higher than our ways. All that You do is perfect and all of Your ways are
just and right. I come to You in the name of Jesus Christ knowing that I cannot
stand in Your presence in any other way. I have sinned against You and have no
excuse. You know all the thoughts and intents of my heart. I confess them to
You. I am not sorry because of the consequences but because it damages my
relationship with You. I repent of it, turn away from it, and plead Your
forgiveness. I put all of my trust in Your promise that You will immediately
totally cleanse me of all my unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). Thank You
Lord for the greatest act of love in history by dying for my sins so that I can
have right standing with You and eternal life instead of hell. In Jesus name
amen.

14 comments:

simon
said...

i just have one question about the hillsong doctrinal statement in it says: We believe that in order to receive forgiveness and the 'new birth' we must repent of our sins, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and submit to His will for our lives.

with that statement in mind how can you then say hillsong is not talking about repentance when they present the gospel?

Troy, for example, for several years I have been asking for someone to come forward with a sound gospel presentation from Hillsong. Not a single has taken me up on the offer. Also, I have attended Hillsong (in two locations) and never heard anything resembling the Christian gospel. So you are welcome to come on here and prove me wrong. Anything else is pretty lame.

Well done Troy! It's hard to stand for the truth of the gospel in this current climate. My husband and I call this new breed, christianists - they are "good" humanistic, people who like all of the warm fuzzy type concepts of the faith. They hate the thought of talking about sin, repentance and being counter-cultural. You hear God more than Jesus; He really is the stumbling block and rock of offense. Would you be able to shed some light on the Bethal movement? They are quite influential in our church here in Australia - we are concerned with their doctrine and emphasis on mysticism.

Troy I can vouch for Cameron on Hillsong! What he says is true! Even calls Christ darling in their song! Being romantic with Christ. And Yes he did attend a church like hillsong he was in a church saturated by it.

He was in australia after so he knows what he is talking. :)

Anonymous troy is not standing for Gospel truth as he is siding with hillsong.

Do not attempt to get all spiritual with mysticism as its part of the catholic church and will lead you to a false Christ.

As for the bethel churchhttp://apprising.org/2011/07/05/an-invasion-of-error-a-review-of-bill-johnson-when-heaven-invades-earth/

I've read through some of your blog posts. You are a smart guy. Too bad everything you have to say tears someone down. Your blog does not represent the love of Jesus. (Maybe you are just trying to ignore love because it isn't in Acts) I have been contemplating going to seminary but don't want to come out of it fired up to tear apart anyone who sees something different than I do. I would hope that seminary ignites my passion for pure religion (James 1:27) and that my blog can be used to encourage people to move forward in bringing the kingdom of God instead of creating a war within the Church.

One of primary reasons given by men to prove that water baptism is not essential for salvation is, what if someone believed but died before they were baptized?

Does God give men a pass on meeting the requirements of salvation if they simply do not have time to comply?

1. If a man believes but dies before he can be baptized into Christ for the forgiveness of his, will he still be saved? I cannot find that exception in Scripture. (Mark 16:16, Acts 2:38, 1 Peter 3:21)

2. If a man was thinking about believing, but died before he had time to believe, would he still be saved? I cannot find that exception in Scripture. (Mark 16:16, John 8:24, John 3:16, Acts 16:30-34, Romans 10:9)

3. If a man was thinking about repenting , but died before he stopped, murdering, getting drunk, stealing, or before he stopped his homosexual relationship, or before he discontinued his lifestyle of fornication, would that person still be saved? I cannot find that exception in Scripture. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11, Galatians 5:20-21)

There is no record of men being saved because of their future good intentions.

I DID NOT HAVE TIME TO BE SAVED, BUT GOD WILL SAVED ME ANYWAY IS NOT A SCRIPTURAL CONCEPT.

"By harmonizing all of these (rather than focusing on a single verse) we can see that the salvation call is a call to turn away from sin in repentance and a turning to Christ in faith"

"...it must be something more than a change of mind because it is only the outward change in behavior that is discernable to a human observer."

"Turning to Christ means turning away from sin."

How is your definition of "repentance" for salvation NOT works salvation?!

Even worse, after you equate saving repentance with "outward change in behavior" you go on to say "repentance is not reformation."

This "true repentance" that includes an "outward change in behavior" is not *works* how? And HOW MUCH "outward change in behavior" is supposed to constitute saving repentance anyway?

You are obviously very confused.

I would submit rather, the following;

Romans 11:6 And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.

Romans 4:4 Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.5 But to him that *worketh not*, but *believeth* on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.6 Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works

Proverbs 20:9 Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?

Romans 3:28 "Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law."

Titus 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;6 Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour;7 That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

"Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 "And we indeed are suffering justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong." 42 And he was saying, "Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!" 43 And He said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise."

This man, had no time to repent, or for that matter get baptized. And simply by his confession of believing that Jesus was the Christ he has been given the gift of eternal life.

The directive in the scriptures for repentance, or to put it another way, "behavior modification", is an attempt by God to institute damage control.

If you have noticed, were in a real mess on good old planet earth.

Make no mistake, earth is a hostile and unforgiving place. And it's within this setting we find ourselves.

Added to that we are born in a dysfunctional and defective human body, racked with every kind physical, emotional, spiritual problem, now multiple that by 9 billion and counting..

So the call to repent is obviously an attempt at damage control, not a prerequisite or a condition of salvation. If works of any kind was required for salvation then how much work is enough? You would never know, and works would be done out of obligation and not love.

Timothy; you can hardly claim to be harmonising while ignoring James 2:14. The point is that those with are inclined to do good works, and those who claim to have faith in God but don't act this out in practical ways aren't really faithful. Those who do so out of desire for gain rather than faithful salvation are in a similar predicament. It's not a question of which is appropriate but how the two relate. You're being as biased as you're accusing Cameron of being. I believe your 'very confused' about a whole-Bible Gospel understanding yourself.